2011 Dart Asia Fellows Announced

Dart Centre Australasia today announced the recipients of the second 2011 Dart Asia Fellowship.

The Asia Fellowship programme is unique, bringing together both editors and senior newsgatherers – photographers, video journalists, broadcasters and journalists – from across Southeast Asia and the Pacific region, focussing on the reporting of violence, disaster and tragedy in society. All of the journalists have reported on civil unrest or natural disasters in their home countries and beyond; most have covered both. Numerous fellows have lost colleagues who have been murdered for their work.

The biennial fellowship – funded by Dart Centre Australasia, a regional programme of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism – will teach the fellows about issues related to the psychological impact of trauma reporting, highlighting the resilient nature of media professionals, but also exploring issues of self-care in the face of intense trauma exposure. It will also examine the ethics of dealing with victims and survivors of trauma, and questions related to the craft of reporting such events.

"The 2011 group of Asia fellows were chosen from a large and very competitive field of applicants," says Cait McMahon, managing director of Dart Centre Australasia. "The 14 chosen for the fellowship programme have not only displayed extremely high professional skills, but they have also indicated a deep desire to learn further about the science of trauma as it plays out in the world of journalism. All of the group have expressed a keen desire to return to their home countries and share this knowledge with their colleagues and peers. Upon completion of the fellowship this group will join our dedicated fellows group of 2009, who continue to remain actively engaged with the Dart Centre and its message of trauma awareness and excellence in reporting of trauma issues." 

The 2011 Dart Asia Fellows are (detailed biographies are below):

• Kajalie Shehreen Islam,  Bangladesh
• Julfikar Ali Manik, Bangladesh
• Rien Kuntari, Indonesia
• Kevin Frayer, Kashmir/Canada
• Dar Yasin, Kashmir
• Chong-ae Lee, Korea
• Iqbal Khattak, Pakistan
• Afnan Khan, Pakistan
• David Dizon, Philippines
• Cherelle Jackson, Samoa
• Krishni Kanthasamy Ifham, Sri Lanka
• Ranee Mohamed, Sri Lanka
• Amantha Perera, Sri Lanka
• Achara Ashayachat, Thailand

The fellowship programme takes place April 10-17 in Bangkok, with a faculty of journalists, psychologists and trainers from Laos, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States. Following the programme, Dart Centre Austalasia will provide long-term support as they take the knowledge of trauma awareness back to their home newsrooms in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kashmir, Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The 2011 Dart Asia Fellows

Kajalie Shehreen Islam

Kajalie Shehreen Islam is a journalist with The Daily Star, the leading English-language newspaper in Bangladesh, where she is in charge of the newspaper's monthly Forum publication. She is also a lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka. She completed her bachelor's and master's degrees in mass communication and journalism from the University of Dhaka, followed by a master's degree in critical media and cultural studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her areas of interest include conflict and gender, media and advertising. 

Julfikar Ali Manik

Julfikar Ali Manik is chief reporter for The Daily Star in Bangladesh. He has previously worked as a television journalist, as well as a reporter with several Bengali-language dailies since 1990. He has freelanced with The New York Times, Al-Jazeera, PBS, Channel Four and Outlook India, among others. He has published two books based on reports investigating disappearances and killings during the Liberation War of Bangladesh and the killing of a military ruler. He has won several awards for his investigative reporting, including the UNESCO Bangladesh Journalism Award for the best investigative report in the print media published in 2008. 

Rien Kuntari

Rien Kuntari is a former war correspondent for the Kompas Daily in Indonesia, where she publicized human rights violations in Iraq, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Indonesia, and reported on international politics from more than 50 countries across the world. Her recent book, "East Timor, One Last Minute: A Journalist’s Note," described the 1999 crisis in which East Timor broke away from Indonesia.

Dar Yasin

Dar Yasin is a photographer for the Associated Press, based in his native town of Indian Kashmir. On assignment in Srinagar, he has covered the Kashmir conflict, the South Asia earthquake and its aftermath. In Kabul, he has covered the Afghan war, the refugee crisis and the daily life of war-torn Afghanis. His work has appeared in numerous leading international publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Match du Monde, Der Spiegel, The Telegraph, The Observer and all the leading newspapers and news magazines of India.

Kevin Frayer

Kevin Frayer is a photographer for the Associated Press, based in Kashmir. His career spans two decades and several turns in history, from the fall of Yugoslavia to wars in Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan.  Over the years his work has been recognized by a number of awards and citations including World Press Press Photo (where the image was also winner of the “Peoples’ Choice” award) POYI, and The Headliner Awards. He has also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for work contributed during the 2006 war in Lebanon and in 2009 for the conflict in Afghanistan.

Chong-ae Lee

Chong-ae Lee has been a reporter for the Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) since 1995. She is known mostly as an investigative reporter for the news magazine program News Pursuit, where she worked from 1999 to 2003. She has won more than 18 awards, including Reporter of the Year award from the Journalist Association of Korea and the Korean Broadcasting Grand Prize (TV Report Field) from the Korean Broadcasting Association, both in 2003. She has also worked as a reporter on the police beat and on the international news and economic news desks, as well as a producer of the general news. She is now a senior reporter in the Future & Vision Division, which helps set a mid- to long-term agenda for the nation. She also organizes the Seoul Digital Forum and the Future Korea Report. 

Afnan Khan

Afnan Khan is currently serving as chief reporter with the Daily Times of Pakistan, covering militancy, religious extremism, human rights, minorities and the Punjab Assembly, along with special reports on natural calamities such as the recent floods in the country. He previously worked as senior correspondent with another national daily, The News International. He started his career as a reporter for Daily Insaf, and also served as in-charge international desk at The Sun International before going back to its reporting section as chief reporter. 

Iqbal Khattak

Iqbal Khattak has been bureau chief for Pakistan's Daily Times since 2002. He launched his career in 1989 as a sub-editor at The Frontier Post. He served that organization until 2000 as sports editor, assistant editor and in-charge edition. He joined The Friday Times in May 2001. He also served as a correspondent for Agence France Presse for three years. He has been covering the war on terror since 2002, as well as national and state-level politics. Since 1999, he has been Pakistan's representative to Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, with a special interest in freedom of the press and freedom of expression. In 2004, he was elected secretary general of the Peshawar Press Club and has conducted training courses for journalists at the district level.

David Dizon

David Dizon has been an online journalist in the Philippines for the past 11 years, currently working as the nation desk editor of ABS-CBN News. He has covered various beats and written stories on terrorism, health, the environment and politics. He received the Fourth PopDev Media Award for best news reportage. 

Cherelle Jackson

Cherelle Jackson is an independent Samoan journalist whose passion is environmental reporting. She has worked in the Pacific for more than 10 years. She covered the Samoan tsunami in 2009, where she lost friends and relatives. Subsequently, she initiated and organized counselling for Samoan journalists through the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma. 

She has contributed to Al Jazeera, Islands Business Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, SBS Australia, Agence France Press, the Associated Press and others. In 2010, she was a journalist fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, where she conducted a research on climate change reporting in the South Pacific.

Krishni Kanthasamy Ifham

Krishni Kanthasamy Ifham has 14 years of experience in print media. She currently runs a Tamil website supported by Internews-EU and is an external staff member for Transparency International Sri Lanka's news website. She also works as a freelance journalist for mainstream media. Earlier, she was a full-time employee working  at Internews Sri Lanka on two different projects, as an editor and full-time defence reporter attached to the premier Tamil daily, Virakesari, published by Express Newspapers (Ceylon) Limited. She was the first female Tamil reporter in the country's print media. During the most dangerous years of Sri Lanka's civil war, she was the first female Tamil defence correspondent in the industry. She also is the first Tamil reporter to be named journalist of the year for three consecutive years by the Editors’ Guild, in collaboration with the College of Journalism. 

Ranee Mohamed

Ranee Mohamed works for The Sunday Leader newspaper of Sri Lanka, founded by slain founder/editor Lasantha Wickrematungem, with whom Ranee worked very closely. She received seven joint awards from the independent Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Press Institute at their annual Journalism Awards for Excellence. She has worked at the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times and the Gulf News, Dubai. Currently, she is features editor of The Sunday Leader and also writes for the main and features sections. 

Amantha Perera

Amantha Perera is the Sri Lanka correspondent for TIME and TIME.com. He also contributes to the Reuters Foundation, Inter Press Service  and the Integrated Regional Information Network. He was an international visiting scholar at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley (2003-2004) and a Jefferson fellow at the East-West Centre, University of Hawaii, Honolulu (2001). He has reported extensively from the ground on Sri Lanka’s long-running civil conflict, which ended in 2009, on the slow return to normalcy, the 2004 tsunami and its aftermath. He is also a media trainer and has conducted training sponsored by the BBC, UNDP, World Bank, Internews International, the ICRC and the Sri Lanka Press Institute. 

Achara Ashayacha

Achara Ashayachat has over 17 years experience at the Bangkok Post, covering international relations, foreign policy and social, economic and political development issues within Asean and Asia. In 2010, Achara’s work spanned across a wide range of topics, including coverage of the Bangkok riots, the Viktor Bout extradition case and ASEAN economic integration.